This paper explores the content and context of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) in a Global South setting. SHRM practices in the West-Central African country, Cameroon (with over 27 million inhabitants), are unpacked from 74 qualitative research interviews within organisations of different size and ownership, and from secondary sources. The findings show a complex mix of local, imported and adapted SHRM strategies and practices which are socially embedded in a simultaneous flux of adoption, redesign, and disuse by the organisations, depending on their perceived usefulness and on the particularities of the organisations (size, sector). The findings delineate the macro-level cultural contextual focus on beneficence policies and practices (prioritisation of social capital, consensus building, family friendly work practices, and socialisation) as key antecedents in the adoption of agile SHRM practices (content and context factors). A theoretical model from the systems, society, dominance and corporate (SSDC) framework of SHRM is shared that further empirical research may use to investigate contextual features which moderate SHRM practices. The study contributes to SHRM scholarship by presenting a socially embedded agile SHRM approach in Cameroon, where internal organisational stakeholders are informed by dynamic, overlapping and changing multi-level factors over time in the pursuit of organisational goals.